ABSTRACT
The Greek god, Hermes, models his idea of message transfer on a linear logic, invoking a general asymmetry between the gods and humankind where the message, originating in a separate domain (Mount Olympus), is then communicated without distortion to a messenger (Hermes), before being translated by means of Hermes's consummate skill into the mind of a human recipient. To embrace the hermeneutic task means to acknowledge the realities of a babbling culture. The hermeneutic task has to confront inevitable historical inconsistencies, due partly to the imprecisions of language, the vagaries of memory, the personal inhibitions of speakers and readers, and a whole range of further confusions relating to translation. In general the allegorical approach to the Scriptures led to an early form of the hermeneutic of suspicion within Catholicism where the number of authentic interpreters needed to be limited to the properly educated and well disposed.
